Doug Hayward

Doug Hayward's distinctive sense of style came out of his working-class childhood, a world where men like his dad, who had laboured all week in mucky boiler suits, went out of a Friday night scrubbed, shining and metamorphosed by their best - their only - suits, pressed to perfection. He shared the satisfaction of the better persona that a man puts on with proper tailoring, and for almost 50 years, until his death at the age of 73, he suited blokes like himself, only with more money - movie stars and footballers and snappers and hacks and even Americans. He upheld the centuries old British tradition in which male style ascends, and transcends, classes.

His anecdotage and attitude were the source for the character Harry Pendel in John Le Carré's The Tailor of Panama; his charming manner, though not his emotional history, was the model for his mate Michael Caine's 1966 performance as Alfie.

That remembered childhood had been in Hayes, on the edge of London: his Cockney father stoked boilers at the BBC, his mother was recruited into wartime bullet manufacture, and Hayward was bright enough to win a grammar school scholarship, which was followed by an apprenticeship to a Shepherd's Bush Green tailor since he did not have the accent to crack Savile Row. The social ease began with a holiday gig as a Butlin's redcoat and national service in the Royal Navy, another environment where working-class men appreciated cut and finish of kit, and technical expertise outranked background.

Hayward's early clients, including Peter Sellers and Terence Stamp, were acting at the local theatre or the BBC at Lime Grove, or came through his first wife, Diana, sister-in-law to the film director Basil Dearden. Then he joined Dimitrio Major in Fulham, also a specialist in showbiz. Hayward was, and stayed, so driven that he attended customers wherever wanted, arriving by secondhand Mini for fittings with Richard Burton in a suite at the Dorchester.

His own first premises were a niche in Pall Mall (10 fearful days passed before a single customer called), and then business was sound enough for him to move in 1967 not to Savile Row - wrong, Victorian, vibes, too many portraits of the Queen Mum - but to a house at 95 Mount Street, Mayfair. He lived upstairs during the week; his cutting room overlooked the back garden; in the front room, with its grey flannel walls, were sofas and armchairs. Nobody glared at potential customers; they were poured tea or champagne, and so were their girlfriends ("I get a lot of birds in"). Attendees felt it was like a gentleman's club, but it was more liberal, never silent, closer to an 18th-century coffee house, liquor welcome and parties liable to break out. Hayward's services cost a fortune, but his patient ear for clients' troubles, his advice, his contacts, and the therapeutic effect of a visit were thrown in for free. The photographer Terry O'Neill, a regular on the sofa, especially after a long mutual lunch at Langham's Brasserie, called him "the Buddha of Mount Street". The premises got tatty with wear, and their suavity was not improved by Hayward's Jack Russell terrier molesting the besuited teddy bears supplied by customer Ralph Lauren, whose Purple Label line is homage to, and was advised by, Hayward. They were still just right, though.

The clothes were just right too, even if Hayward was heretic over details of Savile Row dogma - he did not disapprove of machine-sewn buttonholes - shock, horror. He was pragmatic, undemanding of a body beautiful beneath - any man could be made to look sleeker; he said people always wanted to know who had been the tailor to Cary Grant or Fred Astaire but "What I'd want to know is who was Sydney Greenstreet's tailor? He was a large man [in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca] who always looked good." Hayward was a careful observer of hands shoved in pockets, shoulders braced or slumped, legs hitched or crossed, and he structured to allow for the way that the repertoire of Anglo-American gesture became more expansive and relaxed in the 1960s. He didn't do tight - a female client who demanded a constricted elbow complained that he tried to get her to swing her arms up as if she were about to shoot a grouse to test the roominess of the armholes. The Hayward cut flattered stage and screen: Caine, Roger Moore in his final, non-Austin Powers, James Bond mode, Sir John Gielgud, John Osborne, Tom Brokaw, Tony Bennett, Clint Eastwood, even the Zen cowboy James Coburn, who called him "the Rodin of tweed". Rex Harrison gave him the ultimate establishment nod of approval.

He tailored sportsmen, too, including Bobby Moore, thought him a classic neat dresser, same as his football. The game was Hayward's real love (he had a trial as an inside-left for the Middlesex county team, but the follow-up letter never arrived), and he easily persuaded his pal Steve McQueen to stand in the London rain watching footie of a Saturday afternoon. His eye was for the movement of a match rather than a particular team, although he was fond, if not a fan, of Fulham and Arsenal. He had his own team, the Mount Street Marchers and Social Club, fielding Richard Harris and Tom Courtenay. Kickabout venue Hyde Park, Sunday mornings.

His second wife was the journalist Glenys Roberts, with whom he had a daughter Polly (she took over the business in 2006); that ended in divorce in 1978. None of his flings lasted, though Janet Street-Porter kept the full length double cashmere coat he had made for her back in 1973: she had to - despite their tendresse, she had only wheedled a small discount. His mother was his definitive woman; she had suspected when the money rolled in that he was running either a brothel or a chemmy game, and kept the hard cash he gave her; one of his stories was that after her death the family found it all stashed beneath her bed with a note: "This money is to get Doug out of prison when they finally get him." He didn't intend to end in the nick, although he'd have done something sharp yet casual with the uniforms if he had; but he always anticipated that the party would be over soon.